Ukraine elections highlight East-West divide

DONETSK/LVIV, Ukraine: Two days before a presidential run-off vote, Ukraine’s east-west divide remains a gulf as wide as the personal antagonism between frontrunner Viktor Yanukovich and his arch foe Yulia Tymoshenko.

As the beefy, slow-speaking Yanukovich contrasts with the elegant and sharp-tongued Tymoshenko, so does the pro-Russian industrial city of Donetsk in the east differ from Lviv, a once-Polish town in Ukraine’s nationalist west.

The programmes of the two candidates include European integration and building pragmatic ties with former imperial master Russia, which supplies most of Ukraine’s energy resources.

But the Russian-speaking Yanukovich, 59, is often berated by opponents as a “hand of Moscow”, while the staunchly nationalist Prime Minister Tymoshenko, 49, who led the 2004 “Orange Revolution” street protests, is viewed widely as pro-Western. Tired and grimy, coal miners in Yanukovich’s native Donetsk region — one of major donors of Ukraine’s budget coffers —said they more valued stability under Yanukovich’s two past terms as premier than Tymoshenko’s tirades on democracy.

“I’ve lived under these ‘orange’ guys for five years, and life has been only going from bad to worse. God forbid she(Tymoshenko) stays in power. I will not survive in this world,” one 56-year-old miner, who gave only his first and middle names— Nikolai Sergeyevich — told Reuters.

“In Soviet days, I would never work underground at this age,” he added glumly. “But now I just have to work to survive.” Yanukovich, who shunned a television debate with Tymoshenko this week, enjoys strong support in the east and south. He took a 10-percent lead over her in the Jan. 17 first round of voting.